“I should never tell strangers my name – especially Jerks”
Sometimes, at the end of a long day, all I’d like to do is read a nice book and snuggle up in bed and read the night away. But, there are times where I wish I could do more than just read a book. I could of course play a game with a rich storyline – the first thing that came to mind is Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots which is known for it’s long cutscenes, but I want to read something. That’s where Hotel Dusk: Room 215 comes in.
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is a mystery adventure puzzle game released for the Nintendo DS system in 2007 by now defunct game developer; Cing. It is probably best described as a visual novel, with a gripping plotline with twists and turns, and the lovable (and despicable) characters – all set within an old hotel in the middle of nowhere are sure to keep you on edge.
The *most* luxurious room in the Hotel…great.
Set in 1975, You play as Kyle Hyde, ex-detective, now a door to door salesman. The game starts with Kyle arriving at Hotel Dusk, passing a mysterious girl in a pretty white dress along the way. Why he chose an old, hardly ever visited, hotel named Hotel Dusk, is beyond me. But, it does have named rooms, as you may have guessed already, Kyle was given the best room in the Hotel – Room 215 also known as the Wish Room. The room that allegedly grants wishes. Wishes? Ha!
The plot revolves around Kyle’s stay at the hotel and it’s mysterious, eclectic bunch of guests, trying to sell the odd item (he is a salesman after all – portable sewing machine anyone?) and to find the person who betrayed him and the reason why he left the force – Brian Bradley.
“He kept talking and I got bored. He smells weird”
Hotel Dusk is unique in the fact that you hold your Nintendo DS like a book – after all, it is quite the interactive novel and one of the reasons why it was so compelling to play (you can set it whether you’re right or left handed to play the game). The downside is that your wrist gets pretty strained holding a DS like that, so usually I like to play it on a flat surface or perched/leaned onto something to make it easier on myself.
XTREME PUZZLE SOLVING 2007
The game is told through, not by chapters, but through ‘hours’ of Kyle’s stay at the Hotel. Each hour progresses as you solve each puzzle and are all equally paced well. What I enjoyed is that at the end of each ‘hour’ you are quizzed on the events of what happened during that hour – after all, you are the detective. Depending on your answers and if you answered enough correctly, you progress onto the next hour – get it wrong, and it’s Game Over and you’re simply re-loaded to your last save point, so the key message here is to be observant and save before the quiz point – you’ll get a quick sense of when the quiz point turns up because the music changes or the plot line turns a murky corner…
Graphics wise, it’s wonderful and if you know me by now, you know I enjoy simplicity but it’s also pretty shocking for a 2007 DS game, but I enjoy it. I would describe the visuals as an early PS2 polygon 3D type thing while on the playing side, it’s like a birds eye view bitmap layout. It’s very confusing at first and there was no explanation on how you can play it, but I figured that if you just drag the red circle across the screen you start to move around.The overarching impression I got of this game, graphics wise, is very very film noir. So, if you enjoy film noir – you’ll probably enjoy this. The character designs are always black and white and sketchy and I enjoyed that.
Music wise – not bad but nor is it quite memorable but there are certain tunes that I enjoyed. At later parts of the game you get to unlock the jukebox and therefore choose any of the smooth jazzy tunes available for you for your listening pleasure as well as trying to unlock new tunes – awesome for replay values!
“You do whatever you want. Just stop trying to make me have fun”
Overall, it’s quite a fun game and there is a new game plus for you to enjoy once you finished completing your first round of the game. However, because it is literally, a novel, there is no different endings or things to do differently, so you quickly familiarize yourself and well… you get bored.
I enjoyed it mainly because of the plot lines (each character has their own background story and yeah, it’s a bore to get through sometimes), there’s a few characters in there that will make you laugh, make you face palm and other characters that make you wish you can stab them with your stylus.
If you’re a fan of film noir mysteries, visual novel-y games, and problem solving, then you’ll have a good time with Hotel Dusk: Room 215 which is only available on Nintendo DS. (Please check your local used games store – its how I got my copy.)
